They Used Radioactive Cans as Heaters

Two cans lying in the snow, warm enough to melt a circle around them. Three men had no idea what they were. In December 2001, three woodcutters in the mountains of western Georgia found two hot metal cylinders on a forest track. Night was falling, so they lit a fire and lay down with the cans right behind their backs. Within hours they were sick, and weeks later the burns appeared. Eight such cans had been brought into those mountains. Sources: IAEA, The Radiological Accident in Lia, Georgia (2014); Stanley Center for Peace and Security, interview with Nino Chkhobadze (2024). Map imagery: Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 by EOX IT Services GmbH (contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2016), CC BY 4.0. Elevation: Mapzen / AWS Terrain Tiles. #shorts #truestory #history #radiation #georgia